


There is a Pond, Where You're Waiting for Me

by Chibifukurou



Category: Nabari no Ou
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 03:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibifukurou/pseuds/Chibifukurou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We meet in the Fuma Hospital's cancer ward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There is a Pond, Where You're Waiting for Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mellish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellish/gifts).



> I went pretty odd with the style of narrative I picked but I thought it fit the story. Hope you agree.
> 
> Kantayra was kind enough to beta this, so a big thank you goes out to her.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own anything. This story was written for personal enjoyment and entertainment purposes.

We meet in the Fuma Hospital’s cancer ward. It’s for the hopeless cases, the ones that are going to die.

You have no family and you’re looking forward to dying. I have a grandmother waiting for me at home. We don’t like to talk about that.

Things are easier if we don’t have to think about other ways our lives could have been lived. We’re happier together than we ever were when we had all of our lives to live. It’s peaceful here. In this quiet little hospital, hidden away in the woods.

It’s a place where we don’t have to worry about anything but each other.

Yukimi teases us about being a bunch of layabouts and always makes sure to push your wheelchair outside when he’s working in our wing. He knows I won’t leave you alone and insists that the fresh air will be good for us, even if we have to avoid getting too much sun. He’s a good nurse.

You always smile when you think he’s not looking. He doesn’t smother us like the others, trying to make us ‘better’ even though we’re both considered terminal patients. I like that too.  

Once you fall asleep I push you back up the path to the hospital. Until Yukimi sees us and comes to help push you inside. He always looks so happy when he sees we’ve gotten some fresh air. Did you know that? I can never tell. You’re always asleep when we return, but you have ways of knowing things you shouldn’t.

Thobari-san, the physical therapist, keeps trying to get me to want to fight. He says that if I don’t fight, I won’t get better. He yells and shouts and tries to convince me that I should want a life with my grandmother. The life of a normal kid my age. How can I know what I want for the rest of my life when I’m still so young?

I usually scare him off by acting the fawning student. He never seems to catch on until I’m safely away. Then I have a few days before I have another session with him.

You never tell me if you have the same conversations with him. I never ask. I don’t want to know if he considers you too far gone to be helped by fighting.

He thinks that I’m too young to know what I want for the rest of my life. For the few months I have left I want to be with you. That is my heart’s desire.

#

You’re getting weaker. You try not to let me see because we don’t want to admit what is happening, but you can’t even get into your chair on your own anymore. I’m not complaining. I don’t mind helping you. Even if it hurts to see you struggle to bend your fingers.

I start pushing you down to the pond, even when Yukimi isn’t working. You still always smile when we go to the duck pond, and I like it down there too. Nobody interrupts us there. We can just sit together and listen to the waves lap against the shore and the ducks quacking in the distance.

We don’t need words to know what is coming.

#

Thobari tells me you’re fighting and urges me to do the same. I don’t want to, though. You’re fighting because you want us to have more time together. It’s selfish of me, but once you leave, I want to follow.

If Thobari tries to convince you to make me start fighting, you never say.

#

The leaves are turning colors and the ducks are flying away. You’re getting sicker. The medicine that’s keeping you alive is making you sick. I help you sit up when you have to be sick, and lay beside you when the chills rack your body.

I still don’t want to fight, but I’m not sure I have a choice. I want to be strong for you.

#

Our visits to the duck pond become rarer. Sometimes it will be a week between visits. I can tell that you mind, even though you won’t say anything. I tell you that the ducks are all gone now, so there isn’t any reason to go every day.

We both pretend that you believe me.

#

The trees have all lost their leaves and the pond is beginning to ice over. You’re too weak to move from your futon without help now, but when you say you want to see the pond one last time before it’s frozen, I agree.

Yukimi helps me lift you into your chair. Hana-chan, the head nurse, wraps us up in scarves and tells us not to stay out too long. She always used to stay that we shouldn’t stay out too long, or we might catch a cold and make ourselves sicker. 

  
I hope you don’t catch her slip.

We sit out by the pond until the sun is almost gone and Yukimi comes to get us. You fell asleep hours ago, but I didn’t want to leave. This is the longest you’ve slept in weeks and you looks so peaceful.

I don’t dare let go of your hand, for fear that you’ll slip away while I’m not paying attention.

#

After that Yukimi makes sure to help me take you down to the pond every day that you can handle the trip.

Head Doctor Fuma takes me aside one day and tells me they’re stopping your medication. We both pretend that we don’t know what that means.

You get better without the medicine keeping you weak, but it’s a short-lived respite. You catch cold on one of our trips to the duck pond. The cough racks your body, and if we stayed inside, you might have a chance to fight it off, maybe gain another week or two.

We go to the  pond instead. It’s frozen solid now, but you tell me that you can hear the ducks far away. I kiss your hand and tell you about the ducklings that follow their mother everywhere and how they are so small and fuzzy. You always liked the ducklings best.

You smile at the stories and close your eyes so you don’t have to look at the pond, and I pretend that I can’t feel you slipping away.

When Yukimi comes to help me take you back inside, you’ve fallen asleep for the very last time.

#

Thobari-san says I should fight. It’s what you would have wanted. I don’t believe him. I just want to be with you again.

#

Head Doctor Fuma sets up a memorial for you, in our spot by the duck pond. Somewhere safe for your cremains to stay. You’ll get to see the ducklings grow up every year now.

#

I’m leaving the hospital today. Thobari-san says that it’s proof I just needed to fight. Doctor Fuma says it’s a miracle.

But I like Yukimi’s way of looking at things best. He says you’re watching over me, and making sure I get better so that I can see the world for both of us.

So that someday, when I come to stay with you by our pond, I’ll have stories to tell you about the world you never lived to see.

#

Goodbye...For Now...Yoite.

 


End file.
